About the pilot and what happens to your data at the end
Version 1.0 · last updated 27 July 2026. tibbi will run as a three-month pilot with 50 to 100 people. Creating an account does not enrol you in research: after the product walkthrough you receive a separate informed-consent choice, and declining it does not restrict the app.
What happens on 30 November 2026
This is the question the privacy policy does not answer, because it describes what we hold while your account exists and the pilot has an end date. Here is the disposition of every category of data, item by item, with the honest note about which parts can never be pulled back.
| What we hold | What happens when the pilot closes | Can you get it out first | Can it be pulled back later |
|---|---|---|---|
| Account email, display name, hashed password |
Kept if you want to keep using the service after the pilot; deleted by 31 January 2027 if you do nothing, with backups purged 30 days after that. You are asked once, in the app, and silence means deletion. | Yes, until 31 Dec 2026 | Not applicable — it is yours either way. |
| Age check record method, time, result |
Separated from your account and kept as a compliance record for seven years. It holds no learning, betting or wellbeing data of any kind. | Yes | No — it is the evidence the 18+ gate worked, so it outlives the account. |
| Learning activity videos watched, quiz scores, tokens |
Deleted with the account. The counts already folded into the pilot totals stay, with nothing attached to you. | Yes, until 31 Dec 2026 | No — the aggregate has no route back to a person. |
| Simulated bets tokens staked, selection, result |
Deleted with the account. | Yes, until 31 Dec 2026 | No. |
| Your run assets lost, runs ended, cooldowns |
Deleted with the account. | Yes, until 31 Dec 2026 | No. |
| Support taps counts only, never carried an identity |
Nothing happens — there is nothing of yours in it to delete. It was aggregated from the moment it was recorded. | Nothing to export | No, and never was |
| Knowledge questions the set at sign-up and the same set
two weeks later |
Stripped of identity on 30 November 2026 and kept as research data for five years, then destroyed. That is what makes the before-and-after comparison possible. | Yes, until 30 Nov 2026 | No, once anonymised |
| Real-world betting survey (E-37) voluntary, opt-in and
written without an account identifier |
Anonymous from the moment it is saved; included in the anonymous analysis set, retained for five years after pilot close, then destroyed. | No individual record to export | No — no identity link is ever saved |
The part people are most often not told
The baseline and two-week endline remain linked by a revocable research code until pilot close. Withdraw them before 30 November 2026 and they are removed; after that date the code is destroyed and there is no thread back to pull. E-37 is different: you can decline or stop before sending, but a sent response is already anonymous and cannot be found as one person's answer later.
Withdrawing costs you nothing
Leaving the study is not leaving the service, and this is where a lot of pilots quietly punish people. Here it does not.
- Your account keeps working exactly as before. Same lessons, same quizzes, same simulated betting screen, same reward boxes.
- Your tokens stay. Nothing is reclaimed, nothing is reset.
- Your run continues. The life simulation carries on from where it was, and a cooldown is neither shortened nor extended by withdrawing.
- You do not have to give a reason, and nobody will ask you for one or try to talk you out of it.
- You can withdraw and still use the service, or delete the account entirely. They are separate decisions and you can make one without the other.
Withdrawing stops further linked research measurement and removes your baseline/endline answers if you ask before 30 November 2026. It cannot retrieve an E-37 answer already saved without identity; you can decline that survey or leave before sending instead.
What being in the pilot actually involves
| When | What you are asked | Is it optional |
|---|---|---|
| At sign-up | A short set of questions: which group you are in — never bet with money, betting now, trying to stop — and a set of knowledge questions about how betting works. About ten minutes, asked once. | Required to join the pilot. Without a starting point there is nothing to compare against, and the whole exercise is decoration. |
| After two weeks | The same knowledge questions as at sign-up. | Asked, not required. You can skip it and keep using the app. |
| During the three months | An occasional short, voluntary survey about betting outside the app. | Voluntary · opt-in Say no and nothing changes. If you send it, identity is removed at save and cannot later be reconstructed. |
| At three months | The same two gateway questions about real-world betting asked at the starting point, so movement in either direction can be reported. | Part of the consented pilot follow-up; “prefer not to answer” remains available and app access does not change. |
| Never | An interview, a clinical assessment, a diagnosis, or anything that puts a label on you. | Not part of this at all. The clinical adviser reviews content and never sees player data. |
The knowledge questions carry no token reward. If they paid tokens, people would repeat them to farm, and the one measurement that matters most would be worthless.
What we will publish, including the parts we would rather not
- A public report by 30 December 2026, within 30 days of the pilot closing, as a document and a summary page anyone can read without an account.
- The limitations printed in the same report as the results. One group of 50 to 100 people, no control group, three months, and self-reported answers from people who chose to answer. Those constraints mean the pilot can show a direction and cannot prove a cause, and the report will say so in those words.
- Findings that do not favour us. This is policy, not an intention. If the pilot shows the product does nothing, we publish that. If it shows harm, we publish that too — and we stop.
- The measurement question sets and the safety verification checklist, free for any other service to reuse. They are here.
- Nothing that identifies a participant. No figure is published for a group of fewer than ten people; below that we describe it in words and say why there is no number.
A presentation to the funder and to ACT support services follows the report, because a document nobody reads is not dissemination.
Consent, and what it is worth
Consent means you knew what you were agreeing to before you agreed. So the sign-up flow shows you this page rather than a tick box that says you have read it, and you can leave the page and come back without losing anything.
The study design, the questions, the stratification and the stopping rule are submitted together to an external human research ethics committee. If it is not approved, the pilot does not run as a study — the app can still exist, but the research side does not.
The stopping rule
The hardest question about a product like this is whether a safe place to practise betting could become a doorway into the real thing. So the pilot reports separately on people who had never bet with money before joining, and a threshold is set before the pilot opens, not after we have seen the numbers. If first-time real betting in that group crosses it, expansion of the betting simulation stops and the Commission is told in the next progress report. Publishing the rule in advance is what stops it being rewritten to suit the result.
Who can see your answers
- Impact and measurement work with aggregated figures only, and cannot see who gave any answer.
- Sponsors see nothing from the research at all, at any level.
- The funder receives aggregated reporting and the final report.
- The clinical adviser sees content, never people.
If you are not in the ACT
You can still create an account and use everything. The pilot sample reported to the funder covers ACT residents, so you would not be counted in it — that is the only difference, and nothing is withheld from you.
Questions, or you want out
Withdrawing is a setting in your profile and takes one step. If you would rather ask a person first, or you want your linked baseline/endline answers removed before pilot close, write to us and we will confirm in writing what was removed and when. A saved E-37 answer cannot be found as yours because no identity link was written.
One thing this pilot is not
It is not treatment, and taking part is not a substitute for talking to someone. If gambling is causing you trouble now, do not wait for a study to finish: Gambling Help Online, 1800 858 858, free and confidential, 24 hours a day. Leaving the app to ring them is recorded here as a good outcome, not as a lost participant.